thefictionvixens Chapter 436 Extra Chapter: The Emperor's Collapse
Chapter 436 Extra Chapter: The Emperor's Collapse
However, the five of them, father and sons, still eat together three meals a day, just like when Shen Shixi was still alive.
No matter how busy the Crown Prince was, he would always rush back for meals. The four siblings would dine with their father, trying to talk about matters of state and the country, using the pretext of seeking his advice to get their father to say a few more words.
Li Yuanke could see his children's filial piety, and the Crown Prince did indeed need guidance. He would often say things like, "If your mother were here, she would do this and that."
Li Yuanke was responsible for the four children's basic needs from childhood to adulthood, but Shen Shixi personally took care of their education.
The Crown Prince and Wang Shu both resemble Shen Shixi in temperament, while Xi He and Fu Guang are more like Li Yuanke. However, they are still greatly influenced by their mother, and their knowledge and perspective are quite extraordinary.
The pain of losing a loved one brought the five men and their father even closer together.
A month after Shen Shixi's death, her big donkey, which had traveled with her all over the country, also reached the end of its life. It died after three days without eating or drinking.
Li Yuanke ordered that he be buried in Changling Mausoleum and commissioned craftsmen to build a stone statue of a young girl carrying on his back, standing in front of Changling Mausoleum.
When the statues of the donkey and the man were erected, he went to see them. He smiled, as if he had returned to that year when she traveled far away, and he stood on the city tower watching her figure recede into the distance.
Li Yuanke's knees had always been bad, and the pain intensified whenever the weather changed. Ironically, he actually enjoyed the pain; whenever the pain became unbearable, he would say to Wangshu, "Your mother is thinking of me!"
Wang Shu couldn't help but shed tears.
He would sometimes ask the children if they dreamed of their mother.
He often dreams about it himself. Sometimes in his dreams, Shen Shixi would ask him, "Li Yuanke, do you miss me?" He would reply, "I don't care about missing you, you bastard, you're waiting for me!"
When he wakes up, he looks at the top of the tent and finds no one beside him. He might suddenly realize, "Did that bastard fall off the bed?" Looking around, he'll be shocked to find that the person is gone!
Consort Xian and others would occasionally see the Emperor from afar in the Imperial Garden. The Twelfth Prince would push him in a wheelchair to relax and visit the persimmon orchard. The Emperor would stare at the branches laden with persimmons for a long time.
Everyone knows that the Emperor must have been thinking about the time when the Empress accidentally ate a poisoned persimmon.
Li Yuanke couldn't help but wonder if that bastard would have lived a few more years if he hadn't eaten that poisonous persimmon back then.
He called Jiang Lingyou over and asked, and Jiang Lingyou was overwhelmed with grief. "In the six months before the Empress passed away, although her health was not good, it had nothing to do with the poisonous persimmons. After the Empress accidentally ate them, she was detoxified and her health improved very well afterward."
"Your Majesty, I humbly advise you that life and death are in the hands of fate. Please accept this with restraint!"
A minister who proposed a talent show was immediately exiled three thousand miles away by the emperor.
Three years passed in the blink of an eye. The children had all changed out of their robes, but Li Yuanke remained in plain clothes. Since the day Shen Shixi passed away, he had never worn a dragon robe again.
He first made arrangements to marry off Xihe, whose husband was Cen Fang, and then busied himself finding a wife for the crown prince, seemingly in a great hurry.
Fu Guang refused to choose a consort, so Li Yuanke ignored him and planned to hand him over to the Crown Prince. He consulted Wang Shu's opinion and issued an edict to appoint Nie Yun Shen's daughter, Nie Huai Ying, as the twelfth prince's consort.
But Wang Shu refused to get married immediately. He told Nie Huaiying that he wanted to spend a few more years with his father.
Nie Huaiying was not very old to begin with, and she was very considerate. She waved her hand and said it was okay. She was quite worried about the Emperor. After Empress Chenyuan Zhao passed away, the Emperor's health deteriorated.
In the thirty-third year of Yongxi, after Li Yuanke dreamed of Shen Shixi more and more frequently, he forbade Wangshu to wait any longer and issued an imperial edict ordering the Imperial Astronomical Bureau to select a date and urge Wangshu to get married.
Wang Shu pleaded with him, and Li Yuan Ke stroked his son's head and said, "No matter how much I love you, I can't keep you by my side forever. If you are ambitious, give birth to a princess as soon as possible, just like your mother. My only regret in this life is that I don't have a daughter like your mother."
Wang Shu playfully retorted, "That's because my sister is not good enough."
Xihe was furious. She grabbed a large pillow and threw it at Wangshu, yelling, "Why don't you admit you're a disappointment? Your parents clearly wanted a daughter, but you were born a son!"
Wang Shu dodged away, "Sister, isn't this inappropriate? Your image is too unrefined. If word gets out, who will believe you're the editor-in-chief of the Yongxi Encyclopedia!"
The siblings had originally intended to make a scene for their father, but when they saw him staring blankly out the south window, they remembered that every winter, their mother loved to curl up here to sunbathe and sleep.
Wang Shu felt incredibly cruel, and when his father urged him again, he finally agreed to the marriage.
Just like when he was a child, Li Yuanke patted his head and said, "That's a good boy. Dad loves you the most!"
Wang Shu rested her head on his knees, tears streaming down her face, and choked out, "Father, your son is unfilial. Your son cannot live without you. Your son has no mother, and he cannot live without you too."
"Father knows! Father doesn't blame your mother anymore. Your mother must have been very reluctant to leave us back then. Life and death are beyond our control, so Father shouldn't blame her!"
In the winter of the thirty-third year of Yongxi, Wangshu got married and was granted a separate residence.
The Crown Prince, Xihe, and Fuguang all went to his residence to celebrate, and Zhaoyang Palace became quiet. The rabbit lanterns under the eaves swayed in the wind, casting patches of light and shadow.
Li Yuanke sat by the window, looking at the lanterns outside, and asked, "Li Fude, tell me, how did she manage on her own back then, before I came to Zhaoyang Palace?"
Li Fude knew that the Emperor had been obsessing over trivial matters all these years, so he said, "When Her Majesty the Empress wrote 'Journey to the West,' she loved to make food. At that time, she also planted many crops in the courtyard. She was busy tending to those crops every day, so she probably didn't have much time to think about Your Majesty!"
Li Yuanke laughed, "When has that bastard ever thought of me? Go and bring me that box!"
Li Fude hurriedly went to fetch it. Li Yuanke opened the box with the key he always carried. Inside were letters that Shen Shixi had written to him during his travels over the years, a few small items, and a lock of hair that Shen Shixi had cut off when he bumped his head. He wanted to combine it with a lock of his own hair and tie it with a red string.
A line of poetry was written on a piece of crabapple-patterned paper: "The flowers are blooming along the path; you may slowly return home."
There was also a life-or-death question Shen Shixi gave him: "If I and your mother fell into the water at the same time, and you could save one while the other drowned, who would you choose to save?"
Every year during the Dragon Boat Festival, Shen Shixi makes five-colored ropes. Over the years, she has accumulated quite a few, a total of thirty-seven ropes.
……
Every little detail is a piece of their past.
Li Yuanke pointed to these and said, "After I die, this box will go with me and be placed in the innermost layer of the coffin. I will carry the sachet with me."
The two strands of hair that were cut off when they got married were taken by Shen Shixi. He picked up the sachet, opened it, and the two strands of hair were still inside. Li Yuanke held them tightly in his hand.
Li Fude was so frightened that he knelt down. "Your Majesty, you can't say that! Prince Fuguang hasn't even chosen his consorts yet, and you haven't even seen Prince Wangshu give birth to a grandson!"
Li Fude knew that the Emperor only had this one thought in his heart.
"That bastard has never had any patience; I'm afraid she won't be able to wait!"
Li Fude said, "The Empress always says that, but the Empress always has the Emperor in her heart. No matter how many years pass, she will always wait for the Emperor."
However, after spring arrived, Li Yuanke could no longer get up and gradually fell into a coma. His four children served him day and night, not daring to leave his side for even a moment.
On the morning of the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, Li Yuanke woke up, looked at his four children, and his gaze slowly focused on Wangshu's face. He called out, "Wangshu!"
Wang Shu crawled over, sobbing uncontrollably. Li Yuanke touched his face, "You are my little moon, and the other three are my little suns. But you are the only one who resembles your mother. I'm going to find your mother now..."
He said to Fu Guang, "You're not married yet, so your mother will definitely blame me. Fu Guang, you should marry the woman you love in the future, then your mother probably won't blame me!"
Fu Guang sobbed uncontrollably, "Father, your son is unfilial!"
He looked at the Crown Prince and said, "Take good care of your two younger brothers. I will entrust Fuguang's marriage to you and the Crown Princess. After my death, you will succeed to the throne. The imperial edict will be made in triplicate, one copy for the Grand Secretariat, one copy for the Six Ministries, and one copy for Prince An. You know all of this."
The crown prince wept and said, "Your son obeys the decree... Your son will definitely take good care of my sister and brothers."
Xihe came over, and the emperor stroked her face. "Your mother is most worried about you. Your younger brothers don't need your care. You must take good care of yourself and not make your mother worry."
Xihe burst into tears.
Li Yuanke seemed much more relaxed. He looked at the dust on the roof and seemed to see the little girl sitting on the peach tree smiling at him and calling him, "Li Yuanke..." when the peach blossoms were in full bloom that year.
He smiled and extended his hand in response, "Xi'er!"
Unable to utter a sound, Li Yuanke's hand fell limp.
The death knell tolled forty-five times.